What you can do to close more sales

Recently, I spoke at the Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce Business Before 9 monthly morning networking event. The talk was titled, Communication and Relationships - A combination for winning business.  It was a sales oriented talk.

One of the things I spoke about was why, when selling, you might not close a deal.  Typically, there are three reasons, and likely a variety of others that are derivatives of these three:

• You're targeting the wrong prospects - In other words, you're marketing the value of your product/service, but to an audience that doesn't value that.

• You haven't built the value in your product/service offering - Basically, when you begin to engage with a potential prospect you have to build the value of what you're selling...does the product or service you offer solve the potential prospect's problem -- does it meet their need?  If you've built the value up well and targeted the right kind of audience, the answer should be 'yes.'

• You haven't built enough trust in the selling relationship - Once you've targeted the correct audience and you've gotten buy-in from the potential client that your product or service meets their need you then need to build trust in the relationship so the potential client feels comfortable buying from you.  At this stage the potential client is really buying you, not just the product or service you're selling.  In other words, does the potential client feel comfortable working with you -- do they respect your personality and approach?  This is most often where deals are closed and won.

So, what you can do to remedy these things is target your ideal client well -- define exactly who you're targeting -- what the qualities of your ideal client are -- so you know what you're looking for and you know what you don't want.

Next, be sure you can clearly articulate what the value of your product or service is for your ideal client.  Your ideal client has to quickly understand that you have the solution to their problem.

Finally, you have to get good at nurturing relationships to foster trust and confidence in you.  This has to do with understanding your ideal clients' personality, behaviors, personal values, demeanor, wants and dislikes.  Take note of these things as you engage with your ideal clients.  Then through regular, valuable communication build a trusting relationship with them over time (could be a short amount of time or longer depending on your sales cycle).  When the timing is right, be sure you ask for the sale.

Posted by:  Nick Venturella

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